I want to mention in the first sentence that this great show of the figural work of Ryan Ward titled “Rouge Bodies” is going on until April 18th at Marywood’s Suraci Gallery. Don’t miss it!
Ryan was raised in Alburtis and was educated at Emmaus High School. An important teacher to him there told him two things that he has never forgotten: “Paint what you see, not what you think you see” and “Don’t insult your viewer.” He has a bachelors of fine arts from Marywood where he studied from 2002-07 and gives homage to the great artist and teacher Mark Webber there for his continuing influence on him.
Marywood is unique, compared to some noted schools like California’s CalArts for this emphasis on painting. Today installation art and video art are all the rage, and that is important work of course, but painting is here to stay, I say, after surviving its predicted death time and again.
Ryan is influenced by Titian, Masaccio, Giotto, Corot, Ingres, Picasso and many contemporary artists. He is working in the Springville Art Studios in Springville, Pa., and is considering graduate school after taking a leave from formal schooling to immerse himself in his art, especially painting.
I met Ryan approximately four years ago at a two-artist show of his and a friend of his, Evan. Both of them were founders or re-founders with three or four other young artists of the late great Test Pattern gallery in Scranton. I was shocked at the quality of his work as well as the other owners of Test Pattern. Many an enjoyable night was spent at its shows going back and forth from the gallery, to have a pint at the wonderful Bog and back again. And all of these young artists invited me, a much older artist (before my time as critic!) and introduced me to their fellow artists. I still look back in fondness and appreciation for that time.
Ryan’s work at that time was somewhat autobiographical I think, with powerfully painted figures with large haunted eyes and circles of dark and suffering surrounding them. I often teased the young artist that they often looked like him after a night of late night art conversation and maybe a few pints and not enough sleep. This is not to take away from the powerful effect these paintings had.
I had not seen his work for the past few years, not until the opening of the show at Marywood on Feb. 20. His show was the same night as his great teacher, which I viewed downstairs first. Webber’s show was so good and powerful in its viewing effect on me that I somewhat guiltily went up to see Ward’s work thinking “How can he compete with this?!” and expecting more solemn-eyed portraits that I would no doubt like but had basically seen before.
I was therefore surprised to walk into a different art universe, both from his earlier work and from the great paintings downstairs. Professor Webber was his admired teacher, but it was obvious that both teacher and student had let Ryan be his “own man.” The work was strikingly original to me.
Much of what I have to say must be pretty close to the mark, as I studied and thought about his work without more than skimming his own artist statement, and we have similar thoughts on his work.
His announcement card for his show states that “Ryan D. Ward deconstructs and reconstructs the figure through play, revision and an underlying awe for the human form in his most recent series.” He goes on in his excellently written statement to say that “In 2009, I began to reevaluate certain conventional principles regarding the construction of a painting. … Through experimentation, I began to deviate from these principles and welcomed the unexpected results. … Upon recent review of selected Picasso writings, I found the artist had touched upon this concept many times.”
You can feel the authentic energy in this work. He really reinvented himself — reached down deep within his soul, and for his time and place painting itself.
In a private letter, Ryan, on his way to study the art of London, said, “Really we do (art) for that transcendence.” This is why I so often speak of God or spirituality in my writings about art — it is not that all artists are consciously religious but that all artists strive for that moment of transcendence. Transcendence of what? Suffering, late bills, remorse and death itself. As in St. Paul’s statement in Corinthians (actually quoting Isaiah) but in an artistic transformation, “O death, where then is thy sting?”
The work shown here I do not know the name of. I did not write the name down as I wandered awestruck at the time, as Ryan is now, no doubt, wandering the streets of London equally awe struck.
It appears to be a woman. On the right, there appears — to me at least — to be another vague image that I interpret to be a male form. The painting is in oil, and I believe at least some chalk or oil stick. The colors are all muted earth tones with splashes of darker reds and maroons and wonderful deep blues. Again, as in his teacher’s own work, the colors remind me of Cezanne’s palette at times, but with darker and richer colors.
Many of his works, but especially this one, seem to me very pagan — not in a bad sense as contra Christianity but in a Greco-Roman mythological sense. His work seems of deep Titanic powers struggling or wrestling endlessly for some sort of resolution. This is his “Deconstruction and Reconstruction” that he writes of. Those terms seem too modern to me, though, for this primordial — almost cosmic — creation. I have called this article “Metamorphosis,” and the American Heritage Dictionary defines that as “A transformation as by magic or sorcery,” and I think that fits the feelings of these dark and mysterious paintings. Mr. Ryan is a magician of paint, I believe, and I have no doubt that he felt he was moving spiritual energies around with the assured swipes of his brush.
They remind me of many different kinds of artwork. There is a male, even playful sexual aggression in them (am I getting too Freudian here?), and yet a haunting spiritual, even feminine grace hangs over these amorous struggles. These paintings are like smoke and very hard to grasp. Have you ever seen tornadoes half-formed lightly touching the ground? That is what these rogue bodies remind me of. They are like forms materializing and dematerializing before one’s eyes — foreground and background trade places before one’s eyes, like a test Gestalt image, stabilize.
This is a remarkable achievement for a young artist, let alone an old one. He talks of graduate school — go by all means — but do not lose this Daemon you already possess!
Somehow, there are cave paintings in his work and Douris’ “Eros and Memmon” from almost 500 B.C. and some of Michelangelo’s more aggressive sculptures and Rodin’s “The Kiss” sculpture, and yes, of course Picasso and some of his mythological Caryatid artworks.
There are circles and curves, but no straight lines; all is movement and transformation and metamorphosis.
I will leave you with a quotation by Charline von Heyl that Ryan especially relates to:
“There are very few things that have both direct impact and this gradual unfolding in the same way as a painting.”
Ryan, you’re onto something great, so continue young man, your alchemy of oil and pigments!
w
